MANNY BARRAZA TRIAL: KEY WITNESS SAYS JUDGE ASKED HER FOR MONEY

EL PASO -- Diana Rivas Valencia, the government's key witness in state
judge Manuel Barraza's trial, testified Monday that he visited her in jail
and asked her for money and women as payment for intervening in her
cocaine case.

But under cross-examination, Rivas Valencia said she did not remember how
much money Barraza wanted. She also said he never told her he would
dismiss the charges against her.

"There was no guarantee," Rivas Valencia, 23, said while being questioned
by Barraza's lead attorney, Mervyn Mosbacker.

Rivas Valencia is scheduled to be back on the stand today, as Mosbacker
did not finish questioning her.

She is the fourth government witness to testify as federal prosecutors
continue to try to prove that Barraza was "collaborating" with several
women to receive sex and money for judicial favors. The scheme, according
to the government witnesses, was to begin on Jan. 4, 2009, three days
after Barraza took the oath of office as a state district court judge.

"He asked for money and he asked for some girls," Rivas Valencia said of
Barraza. "He was going to change my case. Change it to his court, and he
was going to get rid of the charges. He asked me to wait until January 4."

Rivas Valencia testified that Barraza got involved in her drug case
because she sought him out. In 2006, he had represented her when she said
she was arrested and charged with possessing 198 pounds of marijuana. She
said Barraza, 54, got the state to drop the charges against her.

"I don't know how he got them dropped, but he did," she said.

When she was arrested again in September 2008, she wanted Barraza to
represent her, but her mother hired another attorney, Ruben Ortiz. When
Ortiz recommended that Rivas Valencia take a plea agreement that meant she
would spend two years in prison and then be deported, she refused. She
asked her sister, Sarai Valencia, to go find Barraza.

Her sister asked Barraza to go visit Rivas Valencia in jail. He went two
times in December 2008, after he was elected but weeks before he took
office as a judge.

"When I saw him I started crying," Rivas Valencia said. "I was crying
because I was happy, because I knew that by showing up he was going to
help me."

Rivas Valencia said they talked about getting Ortiz off the case so that
Barraza could assign an associate of his instead.

"He told me to tell Ortiz that he wanted too much money," Rivas Valencia
said. "And to tell Ortiz that Manny didn't want money, that Manny wanted
(women). When I told Ortiz this, he just laughed."

During that Dec. 4, 2008, conversation, Rivas Valencia said Barraza asked
her to find women to have sex with him.

"When he came back in late December, he was upset because he had not
received the phone numbers of any of the girls I had told him about. These
were girls that he could have sexual relations with, so that he could help
me," she said.

Rivas Valencia said that while she was in jail throughout December 2008
and January 2009, she did not know the FBI was investigating Barraza. She
found out about the investigation sometime around Feb. 22, 2009, when the
FBI helped lower her state bond from $150,000 to $1,500. She posted it and
is free on bond.

She also said the FBI asked her testify against Barraza and in exchange
they would try to make sure she did not get deported to Mexico if
convicted of possession of two kilos of cocaine, the crime she was
arrested for in 2008. That case is pending in state court.

While being questioned by Mosbacker, Rivas Valencia also acknowledged that
she still owes Barraza $2,800 from when he represented her in 2006. Other
than sending her one invoice, she said, Barraza did not try to collect
from her.

Before Rivas Valencia took the stand, FBI agent Rita Fragoso testified for
about two hours.

Fragoso, an undercover agent in El Paso, twice went with Sarai Valencia to
Barraza's office. During both meetings, Valencia was wearing a wire and
carrying a hidden video recorder. Fragoso said the FBI sent her along to
protect Valencia.

Fragoso also testified that in those meetings she was posing as one of the
women Rivas Valencia and Valencia had lined up to have sex with Barraza.
The sex acts never occurred.

Under cross-examination, Fragoso said she did not know Barraza beforehand
and that she did not know much about the case or why Barraza was being
investigated. She also said that Valencia trusted Barraza and did not need
protection from him.